1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing control apparatus, to a printing management apparatus, to a printing system, to a printing control method, to a printing management method, to a printing control program, and to a printing management program.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-199688, filed Jul. 6, 2004, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, a system has been utilized in which multiple printers and a computer are connected via a network, and a print job is executed by selecting one of the multiple printers for executing the print job. The system has a server set up on the network. In such a system, print jobs are sent from the computer to the server and are spooled. Each of the printers receives print jobs from the server, and executes the received print jobs. In this system, in a case where an error occurs in a printer designated for the print job or the designated printer is busy, the server sends the print job to a second printer and the second printer executes the print job. By this means, the time the user waits until the print job is completed can be shortened (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2002-032205, and http://www.kernelsupport.co.jp/seihinntop.htm).
However, in the above-described system, in a case where the server is down due to hardware malfunction or failure of power to the server, the server cannot send print jobs. In such a case, print jobs cannot be executed even through all of the printers are working properly. In addition, the system requires installation of the server, which incurs increased cost and additional man-hours needed for maintenance of the server.